A Cent Off Our Profit
by YamiMerrk
Summary: After an attack by an escaped angel prisoner and an unplanned diving session courtesy of her boyfriend's corpse, Lazuli the water demon is saved from certain death by a mysterious assassin with power unseen by any Median and a penchant for cash, sent to Medius by the Hyperion corporation. Will she die fighting, or will they join each other for the sake of the profit?
1. Prologue

**Author's Notes: Hi, guys. YamiMerrk here- hope you enjoy the prologue! Since this is my first fanfiction for, well, anything, it may have a few errors as far as the plot progression goes. If you see that there's an error, point it out in a review and I'll correct it.**

The gravestones in the cemetery outside of the villages stood solemn in the blanket of white. The two moons of Medius were rising far above, their twin lights casting a glow on the entire country of Fragaria as its citizens slept. The snow glittered, the leafless trees stood like silent guardians over the forests, and in the center of the graveyard a single petal withered and fell from its rose.

The explosion had several of the lighter sleepers in the nearby villages jolting out of their covers.

As the debris from the gravestone cleared, a man who wasn't there before unfolded his limbs and stood over the small jakkai grave. He was covered from neck to toe in a suit of gray armor, with material ranging from kevlar to steel plates, and his head was covered in a helmet with a black faceplate stretching from his chin to his scalp. As he marched down the hill to the entrance of the cemetery, he pulled his Infinity-model pistol from its hip holster and conjured his slightly curved digistruct katana from thin air into his right hand. If the briefing was any indication, he would need them.

He brought his hand to the button on his left ear and activated the comms connection, the face of Harold Tassiter, CEO of Hyperion, popping up in the top-right corner of the helmet's heads-up display. "The teleportation was a success, sir," the man confirmed, his voice synthesized slightly due to the helmet.

"_Excellent_," Tassiter said, his voice laced with static from the connection. "_We are going to need to obtain as much data as we can collect. DNA samples of the species, climate patterns, population counts. As you are aware of, this data is imperative to our colonization. Do not disappoint me, Binary One._"

"I never disappoint, sir. I'll have the data by the end of the month, sir."

"_Good. Now get going. Time is money, Binary One, and every cent lost is a cent off our profit._"

As the comms shut off, Binary One looked around the forest he had entered. The flora, as far as he could see, was identical to that of Terra- at least, before the colonization started. After he had stuck the sample collector into a soft bit of tree bark and gathered its sap, he jolted his head up as he heard a sharp noise- a woman screaming for help!

Immediately, he took the needle out and sprinted towards the source of the noise, quickly exiting the forest and dashing across the surface of a frozen lake. Within minutes, he reached the source of the scream and helped her out of the freezing water- as far as he could tell, she was some sort of badger-like mutant, with blue/white fur and sharp blue claws. As he dragged the mutant out of the water, he pushed down on her chest and forced the water out of her lungs before lifting her up and carrying her away from the lake. As he set the now-unconscious mutant on the snow, he took out a syringe filled with a red serum and plunged it into the wound on her hip, the serum reducing it to a patch of tender, naked skin. After this, he took out the sample collector, plunged it into the scar, and took it out once the small bottle was full of the mutant's blood. He sat with his back against a tree trunk and waited for her to wake up.

**Author's Notes: Since this is my first fanfiction on this site, reviews and suggestions for the fanfic are highly appreciated. Hope you guys enjoyed!**


	2. Chapter 1: Demonstrations

**(Lazuli's P.O.V.)**

As I woke up, my head was swimming from almost drowning and I could barely see a few feet ahead of me. "Wha...? Am I...dead?" I was startled quite a bit when someone replied- someone with a weird voice and a body completely covered in grey, tight-fitting armor. "Not by the looks of it. You're a pretty lucky woman, you know that?"

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" I shouted as I suddenly stood up, baring my teeth, flexing my claws, and forcing my eyes to glow a bright blue- however, they quickly found themselves looking down a cylinder of metal and I felt the all-too-familiar prick of a blade on my sternum. "Brave, too. Let me tell you something, lady- compared to some of the stuff I've faced off against, you're just a blue puppy. You try to slash me with those fancy blue claws of yours, I'll pump your brain full of lead. Of course, by then you'll probably have impaled yourself on this here katana- which, by the way, I can recreate, so don't go thinking that you can just yank it away from me and leave me weaponless."

After a second, I lowered my claws and lessened the glow of my eyes, and the man pulled the red, transparent sword away from my chest and lowered the weird club-looking weapon he held to my face. "Good. Now, let me ask you this- what, exactly are you?"

"What do you mean, what am I? I'm a demon, you stupid Median! You seriously don't recognize that I'm straight from the fires of Hell?" I asked the flat faceplate, slightly incredulous. By Syndel's Crown, this guy was an idiot.

**(Binary One's P.O.V.)**

"Actually, no, I don't," I said, chuckling a bit. "Partly because Hell was proven to be an outdated scare tactic a long time ago, but mostly because I'm not even a Median." "What do you mean, you're not a Median?" the 'demon' asked, obviously trying to maintain her air of arrogance and ferocity but with a small bit of fascination poking out. "You're clearly a human." I sighed at that- why did they always make that mistake? "Yes, I'm obviously a human, and _you're_ obviously a badger with blue fur. Just because it's obvious doesn't make it true. I'm not from Medius, as you seem to think- I was born a couple of galaxies away, and I only ever heard of this planet when I was sent here by Hyperion."

"Galaxies? What the hell are galaxies?" the 'demon' asked- oh, brilliant. These people are so uncivilized they don't even know basic astronomy. "I'll explain them to you later, how about that?" "Hmph. That's awfully informative." "Well, you're just gonna have to wait. Anyways, have you got a name? Considering how primitive this planet is, I'm beginning to doubt it." "Of course, I have a name, asshole- it's Lazuli. What's _yours?_" "Mine? Binary One." The 'demon' paused for a minute before responding. "Binary One? The hell kind of name is that?" "The kind of name used when you don't want people to track you. Now, come on, let's get out of this forest. Another minute here and I'll have to be sent to Helios Station in an ice cube." Though the 'demon' protested a bit, she wasn't strong enough to stop me from dragging her out of the forest and onto a dirt road leading west.

As the moons reached the tip of the sky, I halted when I detected approaching humans- two of them, dressed in gear one would think appropriate to a medieval highwaymen and wielding axes and swords of iron. "Oh, son of a taint, not more of these assholes. Stay back, Lazuli, I've got a gun and a sword and you've got a waterlogged brain." As the bandits approached, one of them- a man in his forties with white skin and a brown beard- shouted, "Oy, you! Yeah, you with the gray suit! Give us yer cash or you're dead!" I stopped when he said that and put my hands on my hips, one of them holding my Infinity pistol. "Hey, fellas, you ever heard of a gun before?" The bandits paused, confused. "Well, no. What's it matter, anywa-" "Well, isn't that unfortunate." I raised the pistol to point at the bandits' chests, said "This is what a gun does," and fired.


	3. Chapter 3: Civilization

**(Lazuli's P.O.V.)**

A sudden,deafening noise from Binary One's gun forced me to cover my sensitive ears with my hands- something that loud should have torn Binary One to shreds instantly. When the roaring noise stopped after a few seconds, I removed my hands from my ears, opened my eyes, and saw the bandits- only now, they were corpses lying on the ground steaming, peppered with holes and filled with tiny metal scraps. As I stared in shock and awe, Binary One crouched and took all the coins he could find out of what remained of their pockets. "Was... was that your gun?" "Yes, in fact," Binary One grunted. "And that was just semi-auto. Just you wait until you see the carnage it can cause on full-auto."

As Binary One stood back up, he tossed me what seemed to be the remains of a steak sandwich. "Eat up, hellfire girl. Demon or not, you're bound to be starving at this point." Though the 'hellfire girl' comment pissed me off a bit, I had to admit he was right- my stomach felt like it was on fire.

**(Binary One's P.O.V.)**

As the demon girl scarfed down the steak sandwich, I palmed the gold coins in my hand. I'll admit it, I'm probably one of the greediest people I know. And considering that I know Tassiter and Marcus, that's saying something. I quickly copied the coins to my digistructor so I could make as many as I needed- who knows how expensive stuff is here?

After a couple hours of uneventful walking, Lazuli neglecting to ask me anything, we reached a village of wooden houses and cobblestone roads, only further affirming my assumption that these people were medieval. As several of the village's guards closed in on us, fear and hatred evident on their faces, one of them shouted "Get away from our village, spawn of Syndel! You're unwelcome here!" Before Lazuli decided to maul them, I stopped her with a hand against her chest and turned to the guard in question. "Now, sir, there's really no need for that. She was just saved from drowning, and-" "QUIET, you evil scumbag!" one of the other guards shouted, and he quickly found himself staring down the blade of my digistruct katana. "_What the hell?!_ He just summoned that blade from thin air!" "Yep, and I can summon more," I said, making my voice just cheerful enough to sound dangerous. "So I suggest that you take your bigotry, stick it back where it came from sideways, and let us through." Perhaps out of justified fear for their lives, the guards immediately did so, and Lazuli and I entered the village.


End file.
